The New Man Nation
The New Man Nation is the world's largest terrorist organization, second only to Doctor Destroyer's Black Zodiac. It was at one time only a very small organization, but since Doctor Destroy's disappearance Timothy Blank, the King Cobra, grabbed ahold of the Zodiac and reformed it into the New Man Nation. The Nation seeks nothing short of utter world domination. King Cobra wishes to recreate the world in his image, and now that he has the vast resouirces of the Zodiac at his fingertips he has become a true menace and finally seen as the dangerous man that he really is. History The New Man Nation is a terrorist organization with a reptilian theme, following the orders of its general, the would-be conqueror King Cobra. Like all terrorist operations the Nation is widespread throughout Paradigm City, with operatives moving about all classes of society. For the most part the agents of the Nation operate in sleeper cells of two to four called Nests. These Nests go to extreme lengths to keep their affiliations secret until called upon, at which case they unload with everything they’ve got. The Nation is the brain child of the vicious King Cobra. At one time the world’s preeminent genetic scientist, Blank believed that people with missing limbs could have them regenerated by splicing human and reptilian DNA. He received fame and recognition for his efforts and his dramatic successes, even though those patients he treated often received reptilian characteristics in their appearances in exchange for their replaced limbs and organs. It may have been true at one point that Blank sincerely wanted to help people, but eventually his dream metamorphosed from helping people to ruling over them. Born in London in 1955, Timothy Blank was the child of genetic researcher Frederick Blank and his wife, biochemist Angela. The young Blank followed in his father’s footsteps and gravitated to genetic sciences, earning his doctorates in medicine and genetics from Oxford when he was just 19 years old. After receiving his honors he relocated to Paradigm City, where he was hired as the head of the science department for Heroes Unlimited. Blank continued to make discoveries and push the science of genetics further and further along, earning himself a great deal of prestige along the way. He chaired the Book of Man Project, which seeks to completely map the human genetic code. However, all of his glory and fame would come crashing down on his head when it was discovered that he was conducting unauthorized experiments on human test subjects, which often resulted in the subject’s death. Arrested for six counts of manslaughter, Blank was thrown out of Heroes Unlimited for crimes and questionable morals. Despite his prison sentence, Blank was a man obsessed. After serving seven years in Federal prison—during which time he continued his notes and theories—he used most of his money to set up a secret laboratory and continued his experiments, luring in Paradigm City’s homeless by promises of food and paychecks. Sadly, none of his subjects survived until his breakthrough with his first successful human and reptile creation, the abomination known as Moccasin. Determined to repeat his success, Blank looked to the most fearsome of all snakes, the king cobra. He spliced the cobra’s genetic code with his own and another monster was born. The graft was a complete success, never minding the side effect of amplifying all of Blank’s negative traits, including his arrogance. Ina fit of megalomania he declared himself King Cobra and decided to remake the world in his own image. Timothy Blank was a victim of his own brilliance and, most of all, his utter lack of humanity. Blank wanted to see every human being transformed into a serpentine menace, with himself as the Emperor of The New Man. After long periods of trial and effort Blank was able to create a virus, the Coil-Gene, that could successfully transform humans into anthropomorphic snakes and reptile…if they survived the painful transformation. To see his dream of world domination come true, Blank has assembled a number of minions—some mutated, some not—which he has named the New Man Nation. Agents of the NMN are immediately recognizable by their green uniforms with the symbol of a flared cobra hood. When Blank and the NMN put a plan into operation, it is usually a complex one: Kidnapping people to inject with the Coil-Gene, unleashing the Coil virus on subways or into the air, and other such plots. King Cobra spends his free time running scaled fingers over the many globes in his penthouse apartment and dreaming of the day when he can grab the world completely. King Cobra is the nightmare of anyone whom is afraid of snakes. He stands six foot two inches tall. His skin is covered in golden scales with green highlights, and his neck is stretched out prominently and permanently into a cobra hood. He is an extremely dangerous villain. He seeks world domination and the transformation of all of humanity into monstrosities like himself. He has no regard for human life and sees the entire world as objects to be used in his experiments. He is a brilliant madman; and those whom underestimate the King Cobra or make jokes about him are grossly in for a shock. Blank was a firm believer in physical fitness. He is a skilled acrobat and gymnast, with a black belt in Ninjitsu. He is the world’s foremost geneticist, with follow-up degrees in biochemistry, chemistry, and zoology. His bite is deadly, he is capable of injecting the same venom as a true King Cobra, a potent neurotoxin that can kill in minutes. King Cobra is also able to spit this venom out to a length of twenty feet. He possesses a Jacobson Organ, which allows him to recognize, identify, and track people through scent. His scales are ultra-sensitive to vibration, making it impossible to sneak up on him or attack him from ambush. King Cobra is super-humanly strong, able to life one ton of weight. His reflexes are just short of amazing, he can dodge bullets and most incoming attacks with ease. He is extremely pliable, able to dislocate any part of his skeleton to fit through an opening six inches wide. He is able to see at night as clearly as if it were the middle of a bright afternoon. He is cold blooded, which makes him especially vulnerable to cold attacks. King Cobra is the classic criminal mastermind, always taunting heroes from hiding via Skype or other media and crafting elaborate death traps for his favorite heroes. The United Nation Criminal Survey of 2014 called King Cobra a “ruthless mastermind whom will go to any lengths to rule the world. Meta-human crime fighters should never underestimate him or treat him lightly. King Cobra is ranked number four on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and his organization, The New Man Nation, is labelled as a premier threat to human safety and security.” Generals of the New Man Nation The generals of the Nation are some of the strongest reptilian themed criminals in existence. Each one believes in King Cobra's vision at least somewhat and all of them are loyal to their leader and wouldn't think of betraying him. Black Mamba - Jefferson Durant was an award winning biochemist nominated for the Nobel Prize in his field. On the day that he accepted the award, he had no idea of knowing that it would be the last happy day of his life. On that day, an Islamic terrorist group moved from their dank little whole and kidnapped Durant’s family in the hopes of using them as leverage in order to secure Durant’s cooperation in creating a virulent airborne virus for them. Desperate, Durant agreed to synthesize the virus on the condition that his family be released. King Cobra, a longtime associate of Durant, heard of the biochemist’s plight and stirred from his nest. New Man agents struck at the terrorist’s hideout, only to find the place empty except for the corpses of Durant’s murdered family. Learning that his wife and children were gone, Durant’s desperation turned to rage. He vowed revenge, and when the terrorists called to check on the progress of the virus, Durant promised them he would find them and kill them. They laughed in his face. Burning with fury, Durant turned to King Cobra and, after thanking the mastermind for trying to liberate his family, promised a life time of servitude if King Cobra would only help him extract his vengeance. King Cobra agreed, and mutated Durant into the hideous Black Mamba. After a year and a half of diligent, relentless searching Black Mamba finally found the terrorists responsible for the death of his family and kept his promise to them. Since then, he has faithfully served King Cobra and has earned the mastermind’s trust. He has risen to become the second in command of The New Man Nation and remains a faithful general, both from a sense of gratitude to King Cobra and a sense of loyalty. Black Mamba is a humanoid reptilian standing 5’ 11” tall and weighs 190 pounds. His scales are a bright copper hue, with a gold chest and belly. Black Mamba is a skilled combatant both with firearms and hand to hand, he employs boxing skills he learned while in college. He is able to drain the life force of an individual, leaving them weakened and helpless. In order to utilize his life draining power he must remain in contact with his victim, usually by employing a piggy-back style maneuver until the victim is left at Black Mamba’s mercy. In addition to his life force draining powers, Black Mamba can run at speeds far greater the even an Olympic athlete, his top running speed has been clocked in at 62 MPH. He is able to see into the infrared spectrum, which aids him in finding victims that are attempting to hide from him. He is a Nobel Prize winning biochemist whom also holds Doctorates in chemistry and biology. Black Mamba is a man obsessed, both with destroying anyone he feels is a terrorist (which usually includes superheroes) and is unwavering sense of duty to the New Man Nation and its leader, King Cobra. He will let nothing stand in his way. If he must blow up a plane full of innocents just to kill one suspected terrorist, he’ll do it. To Black Mamba the ends justify the means, and he has failed to realize that he has become the very thing he hates the most. Sidewinder '''- Valerie Hapsberg didn’t know a moment of happiness since the Christmas when she was 12. At least, that’s how she saw it. A whiner and a complainer, Valerie was always seeing the world through glasses coated with mud. No matter what was said to her, no matter how well she was treated Valerie remained negative and clung to her belief that the world was out to get her. What she didn’t realize is that, when she agreed to an interview with a Canadian scientist for a research assistant’s job, it was. The job interview took her deep into Millennium City, and deeper still into those sections of the city that most people prefer to forget. The job was actually work as an involuntary subject for the Coil-Gene. When Valerie walked into the room and saw Moccasin, she fainted. When she awoke, she was Sidewinder. At first, Valeria was upset about what had been done to her. But over a matter of hours, as Black Mamba consoled her and instilled in her a deep seated Stockholm Syndrome Valerie began to become convinced that everyone that had ever hurt her; everyone that had ever wronged her, everyone that had ever threatened her could be repaid in full she began to come around. A year of intense training followed, and Sidewinder was unleashed upon enemies they never knew they were. Sidewinder is five and a half feet tall with a scaled skin that is a soft brown color. She is normally hairless, but wears a long red wig because she misses having hair. She normally doesn’t wear clothes, having no need for modesty any more. She is still a whiner and complainer, and clings in helpless hope for a relationship with Black Mamba that will never come, because Durant can’t stand her. Sidewinder’s awe-inspiring talent is teleportation. She is a highly skilled teleporter, nearly the equal of the hero Solitaire. She can appear in a spot facing any direction she chooses and without any residual kinetic energy. She is also able to teleport with an additional 800 pounds of mass. She is a skilled Tae-Kwon-Do martial artist and fights with a pair of butterfly swords or, every once in awhile, a bo staff. '''Pit Viper - George Haskill was once one of Paradigm City’s invisible minorities. A simple cab driver, Haskell lived a daily life of driving his cab, eating a cold sandwich in his tiny studio apartment and dreaming of an existence where he mattered. That opportunity came when Haskell picked up a couple and overheard them making plans to steal an Egyptian artifact worth six figures, and discussing how best to pull off the operation. Hoping for a cut, Haskell took a risk and offered his cab as the getaway vehicle. He couldn’t have known that the couple were truly NMN agents, but he probably wouldn’t have cared. The theft went off without a hitch until the hero Cantrip suddenly appeared in response to the museum’s silent alarm. Stomping on the gas, Haskell impressed his criminal fares by pulling off driving maneuvers that would impress a Hollywood stuntman in an effort to evade Cantrip. When he succeeded in doing so the agents invited him in to meet the boss. That boss turned out to be Black Mamba. Haskell readily volunteered to be injected with the Coil-Gene, and greeted his new appearance and powers with open arms. His first task as Pit Viper was to prove his loyalty to the new organization by murdering someone he knew. He chose his own niece. Pit Viper stands a tad over six feet tall and weighs 170 pounds. His body is covered with scales that are deep green with lighter green highlights along his belly and inner arms. His skin constantly excretes a dangerous neurotoxin, which can be transferred to another by skin to skin contact. In most people, death comes within minutes. Unlike any of his peers Pit Viper isn’t fazed by cold, but heat and fire damage hurt him on greater levels than most. Pit Viper is a skilled boxer and always aims for where his bare fist will connect with bare skin. 'Moccasin '- The monster given the name Moccasin is a living testament to King Cobra’s mad genius. It was not born, it was grown; with human level intelligence and an unshakable loyalty to its ‘god’, King Cobra. Moccasin is twelve feet long, with the gold scaled torso of a human, the lower portion of a snake, and the head of a cobra. It has four arms, which allows it to strike at four foes at the same time. It especially likes fighting with four small jabbing spears. Moccasin is especially durable, most bullets bounce off of him harmlessly and anyone striking him physically must have meta-human strength in order to even make him feel pain. Its four arms provides it super-human strength, allowing him to lift approximately ten tons. Moccasin has a lethal bite, the two long fangs in its mouth allowing him to inject an acidic like venom into its foe’s bloodstream which kills in seconds. Like a classic snake it can dislocate its jaw to swallow objects, it can suck down a child with ease. Because of the shape of its mouth and its odd vocal chords Moccasin can only speak in single words or very short sentences, which often cause people to believe it has less than average intelligence which is just not true. 'Cottonmouth '- Bingwen "Ben" Wang stands alone among the generals in that he has maintained an almost perfect human appearance save for reptilian eyes and a forked tongue. Born in mainland China in 1970 Bingwen fell in love at an early age with the masterful actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. Wishing to follow in his idol's footsteps he took extensive courses in Martial Arts amd promoted himself as an actor. Instead of getting an acting gig, Ben found himself conscripted in the Chinese Army. In the ten years he spent in the Army, Ben saw-and did-terrible things. He learned to forget his humanity and went from a happy boy seeking to be the next Bruce Lee to a cold rigid figure forveer devoid of humor, happiness, and laughter. After leaving the army Ben made his way to Millennium City, where he got a job as a tactical analyst. It didn't take him long to discover that he was working for Doctor's Destroyers Black Zodiac empire, but he didn't care. When King Cobra grabbed the main helm Ben was finally recognized for his skill and contributions, and promised a nest of his own if he would accept the Coil-Gene. He did. Cottonmouth is the commander of all the nests within Paradigm City. He is a handsome Chinese man, five foot nine inches tall and 160 pounds whom is incredibly fit and always wears a trademark white suit and red tie with the Nation's logo as a tie clip. In addition to being one of the premier martial artists in Paradigm City--he has bested even the amazing Gossamer and the astounding Pinnacle-Ben is a masterful leader, organizer, and tactician. He's found that he enjoys being a man whom is feared and obeyed and has no plans to leave the Nation anytime soon. Agents and Equipment The New Man Nation employs approximately 5,000 agents worldwide. Most of these agents are standard foot soldiers, identified by their tight green and black outfits, heavy duty pistols and rifles, and grenades. Unlike the generals, virtually none of the NMN agents know that they are working to transform the world into a reptilian paradise free from humanity. The New Man Nation agents also include scientists, researchers, lawyers, and doctors. Most of these indivisuals do not see combat on the field, and work instead to establish and occupy local nests. Many of them are in charge of the field agents operating in the nest, and receive orders from central headquarters, which are then relayed back onto the foot soldiers. There are a wide variety of foot soldiers, broken into special classifications based on what their job performance may be. Many agents come from the ranks of law enforcement or military, and so no agent should ever be taken lightly.